Accessibility Statement - Timelines

Scope

The British Library is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The British Library operates a number of websites, subsites, and online services (“Sites”).

This accessibility statement supplements our main Accessibility Statement, and applies to the following Site:

How accessible these websites are

We know some parts of these Sites are not fully accessible:

  • Some images do not have alternate text
  • Tables are used for layout, with empty headers
  • Pages are not structured
  • Text and links do not have sufficient contrast against background
  • Some on-page links are broken
  • Adjacent links go to the same URL
  • No language is specified
  • Some form labels are missing

Compliance status

These websites are partially compliant with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons: 

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

  • Heritage material is exempt from the Regulations under Reg 3(2)(f)(ii) where automated and cost-efficient solutions that would easily extract the text and transform it into content compatible with the accessibility requirement are unavailable. This content might fail any of the WCAG 2.1 AA Success Criteria, but particularly those related to the provision of a transcript, subtitles, or audio description.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some images have default or missing alternate text, meaning that users of assistive technologies or with visual impairment may not be able to understand the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).

  • Tables are used for page layout without headers, meaning that users of assistive technologies may not be presented with content in a logical order, or may be led to expect content that is not present. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).

  • No page structure is programmatically specified, meaning that users may not be able to adapt the presentation of the pages to their needs, and users of assistive technologies may not receive the content in logical order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).

  • The colour of both text and links does not provide sufficient contrast against the background colour, meaning that users with moderate visual impairment who do not use assistive technologies may not be able to discern the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast Minimum).

  • Some same-page links are broken, meaning that the keyboard can not be used to navigate through the page sections. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).

  • Adjacent links go to the same URL, meaning that users of assistive technologies or with cognitive impairments may be disoriented by multiple options to accomplish the same effect. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose in Context). 

  • No language is programmatically specified for the site, meaning that users of assistive technologies may not be able to render the pages into human speech. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page).

  • Some form labels are missing, meaning that users of assistive technologies or with cognitive impairments may not be able to discern the functionality of the fields. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2 (Labels or Instructions).

We plan to resolve these issues by migrating the content to a compliant site by January 2023.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 18 August 2020. A full review of the site was carried out by the British Library using Wave and Google Measure.